NDSU statisticians have scheduled two seminars to help shed some light on how teams will perform in the upcoming NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
“Analyzing NCAA Basketball Games – Men’s and Women’s” is scheduled for Thursday, March 12, at 11 a.m. in Minard Hall room 120. Six graduate students advised by Rhonda Magel, chair of the NDSU statistics department, will answer the following questions related to the top teams in the tournament:
- How does their first half of play compare with their second half of play?
- Does the field goal shooting percentage differ?
- Does the three-point shooting percentage differ?
- Do the teams play less consistent in one half than the other?
- Which in-game statistics, besides field goals and free throws, most influence whether a team will win?
- If a team is ahead by five points at halftime, what is the probability that they will win the game?
- How do the in-game statistics in men’s games compare with those in women’s games?
“March Madness Bracketing Using the Probability Self-Consistent Method” is scheduled for Wednesday, March 18, at 1 p.m. in Morrill Hall room 103. Su Hua, doctoral student in statistics, will discuss his method for completing a men’s tournament bracket and how well his method has done in comparison with three other popular methods over the last three years.
The four methods will be compared using a simple scoring system.
Gang Shen, assistant professor of statistics, and Magel advise Hua.
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